


Where You Are, Where I'll Be

by stephanericher



Category: Kuroko no Basuke | Kuroko's Basketball
Genre: KNBxNBA, Other, POV Alternating, Threesome - F/M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-18
Updated: 2017-02-18
Packaged: 2018-09-25 09:29:30
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,588
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9813299
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/stephanericher/pseuds/stephanericher
Summary: And if it’s basketball that’s keeping him away from the people he loves, well—it’s the only thing he’d let get away with it this often.(KNBxNBA universe)





	

**Author's Note:**

> Schedule based on this year's NBA schedule lmao. i generally followed the results of the games that already happened at the time of writing this fic.

October 29, Chicago

Their chartered flight is one of the last ones out of the airport, right after the game ends and they’re still all high on adrenaline from the win. The season is young; this year’s going to be their year again—at least it feels like it, compared to the years they’ve started with half the team injured before training camp ends or when they’ve dropped the first few in dramatic fashion. Every season has its lulls, but all of their better ones have started out at least as well as this one.

The flight is short but half the guys are already asleep as the plane glides down the runway. Taiga’s gotten good at sleeping on planes (he’s had to by this point), but the excitement of the win and what awaits him shortly after they touch down in Newark keeps him up, face plastered to the window at the darkness below. He’d double-checked before leaving for the game that he’d packed Tatsuya’s present; it’s been a long fucking time since he’d been there in person to give it to him and he’s not going to screw this chance up.

The plane is cold; Taiga pulls the sleeves of his hoodie down over his palms. It’s good prep for Tatsuya’s apartment and how he always leaves the window wide open, at least—but he’d feel warmer if he was there in the middle of winter if he could be with Tatsuya and Alex right now, damn it. He checks the time; it’s only been half an hour since takeoff. Their time together is already so constrained; the flight had better not be late.

They get there early; by virtue of it being the middle of the night there’s an open gate and they all pile out, following the coaches in a sleepy mass toward the team bus. Taiga bites his lip. Should he split off now and find himself a cabbie who will head straight to the GWB? Should he go back with them on the bus?

It’s not even a dilemma, really.

“Hey,” he says to Coach. “My girlfriend’s in town—”

Coach waves a hand. “Sure, go ahead. Just don’t be late for practice.”

He feels bad about the lie by omission. Technically, his girlfriend is in town, but it’s also already past midnight and his boyfriend’s birthday (which is the whole reason Alex is out here) and, well. He checks his phone; nothing—good. Alex and Tatsuya should be asleep right now, and despite Taiga’s excitement his own tiredness is finally catching up. He barely registers anything outside the cab window and the cabbie has to ask him twice if the 157th street exit is the one he should be taking.

And then he starts to look; he’s seen this part of the city from the backseat of a cab on his way to Tatsuya so many times, straight from the airport or from going up the West Side Highway, the old-style cemetery and short prewar buildings, 24-hour bodegas and fast food places still with the windows lit up, people out on the streets yelling and smoking and going somewhere because it’s Saturday night. And then they’re there, finally; Taiga leaves the driver a twenty-dollar tip and grabs his bag and digs the spare keys out of his pocket. He can hear music coming from someone’s apartment, a thumping bass and stomping on the floor out of sync with the rhythm.

The apartment’s dark; Taiga lays down his bag quietly and leaves his shoes by the door, folding his sweatshirt on top of the table even though the windows are open and it is cold. The bedroom door is ajar; he stands there for a second while his eyes adjust. They look the same (how much can change in a month and a half, especially when you video chat as much as you can?); Alex is curled around Tatsuya’s side and her hair is a tangled mess. Tatsuya’s face is turned halfway into the pillow; one of his legs is poking out of the blankets. He’s missed them so much; he’s not going to wait another second. There’s room on what’s usually his side of the bed, between Tatsuya and the door; he tucks himself in under the edge of the covers and drapes an arm over Tatsuya and Alex. It’s too uncomfortable to fall asleep like this, but for now he’d rather just touch. Tatsuya stirs, knocking his foot against Taiga’s, but he doesn’t wake up. Taiga’s eyes close; he’s already relaxed.

He apparently does end up falling asleep in that position; he wakes up feeling a little bit stiff and in a contorted position alone on the bed. What time is it? He’d forgotten to set an alarm for practice, but Tatsuya probably has it too and wouldn’t let him leave; he rolls over and the clock face greets him and ugh. He’s got maybe ten minutes before he has to get up, less if he actually wants to spend time with Tatsuya and Alex, which he absolutely does.

“Oh, you’re up.”

Tatsuya’s in the doorway, already dressed and carrying a mug of coffee.

“Sort of,” says Taiga. “Hey, come here.”

Tatsuya’s already crossing the distance, and then he sets the mug on his nightstand and sits down on the side of the bed and it’s already been too long. Taiga reaches up to cup his face, push the hair out of his eyes and look at all of it, feel the way Tatsuya’s breath quivers.

“Happy birthday.”

“Thanks.”

It’s whispered just before Taiga presses his lips to Tatsuya’s.

“Brush your teeth,” Tatsuya says after they break apart.

Taiga rolls his eyes but gets up to do it anyway, pressing an extra kiss to Tatsuya’s forehead, which gets him a surprised laugh in return (not bad).

He can shower after practice, shave later; it takes longer than he’d like to find a set of the clothes he keeps here (Tatsuya’s ability to disorganize continues to mystify him) and he ends up borrowing a pair of Tatsuya’s socks that barely fit him.

Alex and Tatsuya are both waiting for him in the living room, and now that they’re all together and fully awake for the first time in almost two months he lets the rush of feelings overtake him. He’s smiling the goofiest smile and he doesn’t give a damn; they know already how much he loves them and how much he’s missed this but they deserve a reminder every now and then. They just about crush each other in the resulting hug, all three of them half-competing to see who can touch the most, who can send the most emotion through skin and clothes.And then Tatsuya’s phone vibrates.

“We really should get going,” he says.

The streets are quiet enough that they can walk three abreast; in some spots it’s a tight squeeze but that’s just an excuse to accidentally-on-purpose elbow each other or get momentarily handsy. They all get off at the same spot, Taiga to transfer to the line that takes him the rest of the way to Brooklyn and Tatsuya to go to practice, Alex with him. 

Taiga makes it to practice with time to spare, and he’s humming as he gets changed.

“You’re in a good mood,” says one of his teammates. “How’s your lady?”

“Really good, in fact,” says Taiga.

“When can we meet her?”

“Never, she’s too good for you guys.”

He’s the first one out on the floor, stretching and taking easy shots before they start doing drills, and he smiles all the way through the end of scrimmage. There’s nothing like basketball early in the season when they’re just about to hit a groove, when they aren’t worn down and the road ahead seems clear. There’s nothing like this, and then going back home to Alex and Tatsuya and cooking dinner.

They pan-fry burgers and make green beans on the side, and they top it all off with a chocolate cake that Tatsuya starts off in charge of and manages to get batter all over both his and Alex’s arms. It’s not even some ploy to get them to lick raw cake batter off each other, but that’s what makes the prospect kind of appealing right now (and if Taiga ends up with some batter smudged on his face and Tatsuya kisses it off, well).

As he falls asleep, half-spooning Tatsuya, Taiga thinks this is how it should be every day.

* * *

November 4, Chicago

It feels like ages since they’ve played against each other, and if Taiga’s coach doesn’t put him in tonight it’s going to be ages more (not until the new year). Yes, his arm is sore and yes, it’s early in the season but that doesn’t mean he can’t play limited minutes right now. It’s still not ideal, and Tatsuya definitely won’t count it on his personal score sheet, but every moment Taiga spends on the court against Tatsuya is totally worth it.

Coach gives in, but says if he looks remotely tired he’s coming out, and that’s the best Taiga supposes he’s going to get. It’s still okay, still worth it for the moment they stop playing man-to-man and he goes against Tatsuya and forces a pass (one he can’t intercept, but that’s as much of a concession as he’ll get from Tatsuya). Tatsuya can’t block his shot or steal the ball the next time Taiga has it, but then they go back to playing man-to-man until the fourth. Tatsuya shoots, and Taiga reaches up to block—he can feel his arm start to scream, and that’s probably it for him (the Knicks are winning by a lot, anyway, so Coach would probably take him out soon even without this). He tries not to show it, but Tatsuya already knows.

He fusses over Taiga after the game back at Taiga’s place, trying to conceal his disappointment and deflect onto this, and Taiga appreciates it for what it is. He’s disappointed too, though, and he doesn’t want to talk about it either. There will be other games—not for a couple of months, but there will be (and there’s no guarantee that they’ll be healthy for those, but Taiga’s going to hold out hope on this).

Taiga threads his fingers through Tatsuya’s, running his thumb over Tatsuya’s knuckles, and that calms him down a little. It’s been less than a week since they’d seen each other last, but it’s already been too long.

“Get traded here,” Taiga whispers. “Your GM’s after a point guard; we have extras…”

“With any luck we’d be traded for each other,” says Tatsuya.

(He won’t admit he wants it as much as he does, probably out of some superstitious fear of jinxing their chances of this actually happening someday.)

“It’ll happen,” says Taiga. “We’ll play together.”

And he’ll say it until Tatsuya starts believing.

* * *

November 19, Los Angeles

It’s so fucking weird already to step outside of the arena and not be hit with a blast of that cold Midwest air, just the still desert staleness that reeks of the worst parts about being home (which are still pretty damn good). Taiga signs a few autographs and ducks out of the way, glancing around for Alex. She’s waiting by her car, face lit up by her phone screen, and it’s all he can do not to run straight toward her.

“Hey, you,” she says when he gets close, and he can finally see her eyes without the light from the phone glaring off her glasses.

“Hey,” he says back.

She kisses him when they get in the car, then ruffles his hair and tells him he’d played well. He knows he had; that’s why it hurts more that they’d lost. They’d run the right plays; he’d played well and so had his teammates. It’s not even like any of the Clippers put in otherworldly performances against them; they’d just run out of time and ended up seven points shy from sending it to OT. Alex knows all this just like she knows what route to take back home, not straight through the city but out in a loop along the freeway with the windows down and her hand resting on his knee until she has to make the next hard turn and it starts to feel as if he’d never left at all.

She makes him breakfast in the morning, eggs sunny-side up where the yolks burst and he dips his toast to soak them up, and he follows her to the courts where the kids crowd around him and almost don’t let him get away for practice (not that he’s trying as hard as he could to be on time, though he still makes it).

There’s so much to say, stuff he’s been saving for when there’s not a data connection between them, but now that they’re together it’s almost impossible to say it. He just wants to be with Alex, watch her coach the kids and then when they’re leaving take a few shots herself. Her form is still so graceful, so different from when he’d first met her, less powerful but still deadly as hell. He’d say he’d watch her shooting corner threes forever, but the more he watches the more he wants to play with her.

“Save it for the game,” Alex says when he gets up to join her, but she still lets him go against her for a few minutes before she actually puts her foot down.

Their time together slips away suddenly, like air through his fingers when he’s trying to receive a pass that never comes. He’s back at the arena, back in the visitors’ locker room getting dressed for another game. And if it’s basketball that’s keeping him away from the people he loves, well—it’s the only thing he’d let get away with it this often.

And when Alex is there, he can play for her, make the moves he knows she likes the best. Even though she never comes out and says it, she does enjoy it when he dunks, so he might as well give her a few tonight. Playing against Akashi and the Lakers makes it harder than usual, but he’s always enjoyed a challenge, and he gets her three by the half. She’s smirking at him from her seat next to his dad; she knows what he’s doing, but it’s probably working.

“Showoff,” she tells him afterwards.

Taiga just shrugs. “We won.”

“Brat,” she says.

He has to say goodbye to both her and his dad at once, and he can’t keep the team waiting on the bus and make them get off the ground later even though if it were up to him he’d just join them later.

“Come home soon,” Taiga’s dad tells him.

“Finals,” says Taiga (but that’s almost seven months away).

Alex is the one who finally pulls herself off of him and tells him to go. He misses her already.

* * *

November 24, New York

Taiga flies out early, nominally (if anyone’s asking) for Friday’s game against the Sixers but actually to spend Thanksgiving with Tatsuya. Tatsuya picks him up from the airport in the morning and they sit in traffic in the back of a cab for longer than usual, but for once Taiga’s not impatient because they’re already together.

They speak in low voices about their teams’ last few games, Tatsuya’s injured teammates and the trades everyone says they’re about to make, Taiga’s shitty travel schedule, the playoff picture in the west (it rubs Taiga the wrong way that Tatsuya’s up-talking the Suns and Murasakibara, but he knows it’s halfway-intentional, both to get this reaction and to remind him that Tatsuya and Murasakibara are still friends).

They have several hours of cooking ahead, but the first thing Tatsuya does is grab a basketball and, yeah. They go down to the courts and wait for a group of kids to get bored or be called in by their parents, and Taiga’s reminded quite a bit of where they’d started. Trick shots that don’t work, heaving the ball up toward the hoop when it seems unreachable, a not-so-sneaky double-dribble. Eventually, a court frees up and they take it.

They start slow, shooting around a bit, and then start to get aggressive, in each other’s faces trying to get close enough to scare each other off the ball (even though that won’t work and they both know it). They’re not going really hard, not hard enough to hurt themselves, but it’s escalating to that point.

“Hey!” he hears in the background. “Aren’t those guys…?”

He loses focus and Tatsuya steals the ball right under the hoop, stuffing in the layup.

“We’ve been found out, huh?”

“Yeah,” says Taiga.

This isn’t what he’d wanted but on a day like today it’s probably unavoidable, and it’s probably time they stopped, anyway. The kids surround them in a gaggle, the first few leading the charge and the shyer ones staying at the edges.

“I told you they play when they don’t get paid to,” says one kid. “You can’t get that good at basketball without liking it a lot.”

“But it’s a holiday and that’s their job,” says another. “They should, like, get paid extra.”

“Why are you playing here, anyway?” says a third kid, addressing Tatsuya.

“Because I love it,” says Tatsuya. “I grew up playing on street courts with Taiga, so that’s what I’m going to do when I get the chance.”

The honesty in his voice squeezes something inside Taiga. Tatsuya throws his arm around Taiga’s shoulders and tosses him a soft smile, and Taiga’s pretty sure he’s grinning like an idiot.

“Stay close to your basketball friends, okay?” says Tatsuya.

They get home later than they’d like to after signing autographs and dishing out advice (though that’s mostly Tatsuya). Taiga still feels the weight of Tatsuya’s arm across his upper back, still sees the look on Tatsuya’s face when he’s trying to figure out how to steal the ball. He pulls Tatsuya in against him, feels him laugh and cuts off the reminder that they have to make the food with a kiss before the first word has time to escape Tatsuya’s mouth. He knows, but it can wait.

* * *

December 10, Los Angeles

Alex fusses over Tatsuya as soon as he arrives; she’s trying not to and he appreciates that but she does it anyway, telling him he needs to rest more and not spend too much time focusing on his job. He wants to say the only way they’ll make the playoffs is if he gives a hundred and ten percent even when they’re a day out of their next game, but saying that will only make Alex rebut him and he’s too exhausted to go down that path.

He comes to her streetball game; she’s going one-on0one with some kid who can’t be out of high school let, scraggly stubble on his cheeks that don’t quite cover the fresh acne scars. He’s quick and strong, but Alex is patient; she’ll stay with him and force him to make a mistake, make the kind of bluffs he’s not experienced or sure enough to call. Her vertical’s not as high as it once was but it’s still high enough to block him, send the ball off his fingers and behind him, the kind of play she’d practiced with Tatsuya time and time again until he could both block and catch the ball before it hit the ground.

He wants to play with her; he knows she won’t let him do these things in the season (and, technically, he shouldn’t) but he wants to anyway. He wants things to be like they’d been back when he’d been young and always chasing her and she’d seemed almost invincible, but he wants things to be like they are now, too, and there’s no way to reconcile everything. And he can’t have it all, and what he has is already more than he deserves, but he wants it nonetheless.

“I know,” she says, when they’re walking home, looking him right in the eye under the streetlight with her hair shining and her face half-thrown into shadow.

She doesn’t have to say more; there’s always been a lot that they haven’t had to.

* * *

January 12, New York

A month and a half is still too goddamn long to spend away from each other, especially in the middle of the season when they slog through game after game and most of their time on the phone is spent listening to each other breathe or letting Alex fill the silence because they’re so exhausted and all of their best time is eaten up by basketball. At least they’re both still healthy (Taiga’s teammates aren’t, though) and they’re both still very much battling for playoff spots.

Tatsuya draws a foul on him right off the bat, taking advantage of the one flaw in Taiga’s footwork to make him trip over him. He helps him up off the floor without an apology, not that Taiga wants one. The thing is, they know each other so well that anything and everything is fair game, the half-second Tatsuya hesitates before passing and that Taiga turns into a steal and the way Taiga’s elbow tends to drop while passing, things they don’t need to pore over video to notice. They could draw fouls all game if they wanted to play that way, but they don’t most of the time. There’s no use in slowing down the pace when they’re already matching each other shot-for-shot, more or less. Taiga dunks on the Knicks’ hapless power forward; Tatsuya fakes out the Bulls’ point guard and shakes him off, giving himself room to shoot a brilliant fadeaway from just inside the arc.

Taiga’s grabbing rebounds left and right but it’s just not enough; he can’t stuff all the offensive ones in and he can’t always turn the defensive ones into anything real; he’d take a few less in the personal stats category for a better game overall, not that it’s his choice to make. The Bulls pull closer at the end of the game but can’t get close enough; Tatsuya draws a few more shooting fouls and gets the three-point plays and extra frees and it’s not enough to come back from when their shooting percentage drops. Even Taiga can’t score every time he gets the ball, and he knows he’s getting even sloppier.

They end up losing to the Knicks again; Taiga tries to brush off the press but they’re still hounding him but at least this time he can talk about Tatsuya. The more he does, the better he feels; regardless of the outcome they’d still gotten to play against each other and that had been great. He’d take a shitty loss every night if it was forty-eight minutes of him against Tatsuya, but he’s not going to say as much (the press already twists his words enough).

Alex calls when they’re back home eating a late second dinner. It’s still a reasonable hour over on the west coast but she sounds tired anyway, and for once it’s his turn to ask after her and make sure everything is okay. She says it’s just work and doing her taxes and how it always feels like time is lost during the winter because the days are so goddamn short, even that far south.

Taiga pops a couple of Advil before going to bed, and Tatsuya doesn’t say anything (he can’t, really; he’s in the same boat). He tucks Taiga into bed, though, smoothing the covers over him and kissing him on the forehead. The alarm rings later than usual in the morning; Tatsuya probably doesn’t want to be thanked for it so Taiga just turns it off and closes his eyes again. He’s not going to go back to sleep, but he can take a few extra moments to refresh the feeling of Tatsuya nestled in next to him, warm and secure.

* * *

February 8, Oakland

The drive up is shitty, but it always is. It’s worth it, though; she hasn’t seen Taiga in three months and even though it’s a week and a half until the all-star game she’s not going to make either of them wait that much longer, especially when every light she stops at on the way seems like an eternity and when she’s finally there at the arena the pregame slows time to a crawl. Next to her, teenagers are taking selfies (and some of them are giving her disapproving glances for wearing a Bulls jersey, but come on). She thumbs through her texts, rereads the news about the latest injuries to hit Chicago (at this point it’s every opening night starter but Taiga), lets her hair down and pulls it back up, and tries not to drink all of her beer before the game starts.

And then, fucking finally, they’re out of the locker room for warmups; Taiga’s right in the middle of the pack, glancing around until he spots her and smiles, bright enough that she can see it clear as the sky from the top of a mountain. She’s smiling back, wider than she has in weeks.

Taiga does well, better than well, better than his usual standard. He stuffs in rebounds, makes his passes, rises to make the blocks at the right time, even hits a few threes. It’s just not enough to drag the rest of his team up with him against a Warriors team that’s clearly better-rested and less rounded out with injury replacements; their passes are crisper and they have no weak links. Taiga can’t play all five positions at once, even though too many of his teammates are leaning on him like he is and his coach is playing on him like he is and he’s trying to make it work. The final buzzer sounds to cheers from the home crowd, appreciative sounds for Taiga’s effort (it’s always easier to be gracious when you win, though).

He’s trying to pretend he’s not bummed out when she meets him back at the hotel; it’s a losing battle and he knows it.

“You did good,” she says.

“I know,” he says. “But it wasn’t good enough.”

“You can’t carry them more than they’ll carry themselves,” she says. “If you try to do too much you’ll just end up more stressed, and maybe hurt.”

“I know,” he says, jutting out his lip.

And yeah, he doesn’t need her to tell him this really—it’s typical advice, but she hopes he knows she means every word.

“Yeah,” he says.

She kisses him, quick and soft; it makes his face move closer to a smile and he pulls her into his arms, sinking deeper into the mattress. This hotel room is better than anything she’d had in her pro career, but it’s stupid to compare that to this and she knows it (even if it’s where she’s drawing most of this advice from). They still don’t talk about it; Taiga’s never really asked for much advice from her on turning pro, perhaps out of consideration for her feelings and perhaps from a similar wish not to conflate their situations.

“What was it like? When you played?”

His mind is on the same path as hers, then (he’s never really asked her like this, either; he’s approached the subject clumsily but dropped it once she’d made it clear she didn’t really want to say anything—but the last time was years ago, when she’d still been too close to it and he’d been so far away from this as more than a pipe dream).

“It was,” she says. “Those were some of the best experiences of my life—barring things involving you two. And really, looking back—there’s a lot I know now about basketball that I wish I’d known then. You know some of that already, though.”

(She’d be a shitty coach if she hadn’t taught him as much of it as she could without him having to experience it himself.)

“Do you think…?”

“You still have a lot to learn,” she says. “But you’re doing the best you can.”

And that’s pretty damn good, not that he needs her to stroke his ego and not that it makes the loss any easier. But her message comes across; he rests one hand on the small of her back and threads the other through her hair and closes his eyes. She wants to tell him it’ll get better, but there’s still so much of the season left so she doesn’t, just nuzzles his neck and smells the fancy hotel lotion clinging to his skin and the toothpaste on his breath, the detergent clinging to his shirt. He sighs; she doesn’t hear it as much as feel his chest vibrate against her skin.

* * *

February 17, New Orleans

Alex is wearing Tatsuya’s all-star jersey. It’s maybe the first thing Taiga notices (they’d definitely planned this) and he’s awfully glad they’re already in their hotel room and that Alex and Tatsuya had gotten there before him. He’d already been excited enough on the plane trip over, that they’re finally going to be together again all weekend and that he and Tatsuya will be playing for the same team and that they’re both all-stars, but this is like ten extra free toppings on a pizza (or maybe a hundred because this isn’t even in the same league as that).

“Hi,” says Taiga.

His mouth is dry; he’s still staring at Alex in that jersey, at Tatsuya leaning on her shoulder, and he’s about to fucking drop his bag. He leans down to put it onto the floor and keep at least some composure. They don’t have to tell him to get over to the bed.

They kiss him hello and pull him down next to them; one of his hands is tangled in Alex’s hair and the other is fiddling with the buttons on Tatsuya’s shirt, and they’re laughing at his eagerness but just as eager themselves, Alex’s hands sliding up under Taiga’s shirt and Tatsuya grinding against his hips. They’ll have time later to do this less sloppy and hasty, but right now Taiga wants them too much to stop and slow down.

* * *

March 20, Los Angeles

There’s very little Alex enjoys more than seeing Tatsuya when he’s on, the nights all his shots seem to sink and all his passes seem to connect, when he’s conducting the ball as if on an electric current whose frequency he can attune his teammates to. It’s not quite the zone; it’s a false equivalence her mind comes up with because there’s nothing else to compare it to, but it’s sure as hell something.

He’s got a double-double by the half, twenty-one points and ten assists (and a few steals to boot), and he’s been everywhere; she almost expects him to have more on the stat line than he does. The trouble, she supposes, is his teammates. Tatsuya stands out even more when compared to them, a collection of seventh men and role-players forced into starting spots, offensive forwards attempting to guard their own hoop and three-point specialists getting forced to drive inside or turn over the ball. Tatsuya can’t play like this every night, and even when he does, it’s not enough to pull his team’s record north of mediocrity.

And she can analyze all she wants, but that’s better served to another time. She sits back and watches the third quarter, letting every second he’s out there wash over her. One of his forwards fumbles the ball and turns it over; Tatsuya steals it right back three seconds later and sends a crisp alley-oop pass to the slow center who hasn’t even moved five feet from the hoop. Tatsuya gives the center a fist-bump but his face is still fierce; the game’s still close (but to him a twenty-point lead would probably be too close).

Alex rises to her feet when he sinks his thirtieth point with a three from just outside the line to end the quarter and raise the Knicks’ lead to fifteen, and even he can’t help but give a small smile at that. He catches her eye (after not looking at her all game, naturally) and grins at her. He knows he’s too much, but that’s never stopped him before (and it shouldn’t).

He’s clearly seen the rest of the league scoreboard by the time he leaves; he’s trying to keep his face light but he can’t fool her. Even a good win isn’t enough when the season’s coming down to the wire and they’re chasing three other teams for the eight seed and they all win the same night Tatsuya’s team does.

She lets him drive back; it keeps him from sulking and actually puts him in a better mood by the time they get home, and he’s the one who pulls her out onto the back porch. It’s too early in the year for bugs to eat them alive, and too early in the night for the moon to be out. But there’s no real reason to look at the sky, even in the low light, when they see each other so infrequently.

Alex doesn’t tell him that next year will be better, and she doesn’t tell him that he’s done more than enough (even though it’s true). It’s not the kind of thing he needs to hear; it’s the kind of thing in which he’d find an implication of surrendering this season as lost, and it isn’t quite yet. They end up staying out there until the moon is up, shining from in between the buildings in the distance, talking about nothing in between long segments of silence where they’re just leaning on the railing, nudging each other’s ankles with their feet.

* * *

April 4, New York

Everything would have to go right for the Knicks to make the playoffs now, but everything starts with a win tonight. More accurately, everything ends when they get decisively beaten by Taiga and Chicago (already snug and secure in their own playoff spot). Going into the fourth they still have a shot, but no one’s too hopeful and the Bulls clamp down and Tatsuya can draw all the fouls and make all the shots he can and it doesn’t matter at all.

The press are shoving microphones in his face after the game and he’s exhausted, sick of losing and tired of giving his all for nothing and it’s as if the whole season’s finally caught up with him in the home stretch, the months of travel and shifting time zones and repeating drills until he’s ready to drop. He gives them the right quotes, says it’s tough but it’s on all season and not just this one game, praises Chicago’s effort, and pastes the best smile on his face he can.

It’s a shitty start to the next few days, when a day trip each aside Taiga will be staying here in the city with him. Taiga knows it’s not his fault and that Tatsuya doesn’t blame him, anyway; he’d meant what he’d said about it being a whole season’s worth of losses that had led them here, and he can never blame Taiga for going out there and playing hard. He can blame himself for not being good enough, for the stupid foul he’d taken on their point guard to give them a three-point play when he could have made a clean block or the stupid drive into traffic that had become a turnover, and even though he can’t go back and redo it he can learn not to take stupid risks like that next time (but somehow it seems like he’s been learning that lesson since before high school and it’s never really stuck).

“It’s not your fault,” Taiga says, pushing the TV remote back into his hand on the couch and, well.

It is, at least partially; Tatsuya knows he’s giving himself a perhaps-too-large share right now because he doesn’t want to admit he doesn’t have complete control, but still. There were things he could have done differently that might have shifted momentum at the right time. Taiga had carried his team through that stretch when everyone was injured; maybe Tatsuya couldn’t do a whole season but maybe he could have done more, done enough to get them into the seven or eight seed. And this, all of this dwelling on his mistakes, is taking precedence over being with Taiga when he has a full offseason to figure it out and just a few days before Taiga goes away again.

“I just—I want to be better,” says Tatsuya.

And it doesn’t begin to express how annoyed he is at how he can’t keep the anger and hurt of the game from spilling over here. He’s never been good at compartmentalizing, always good at equating how much love he deserves to how well he does at basketball, especially from Taiga, and both of their performances have always colored their relationship to an absurd degree—but they’re adults now, and they don’t get nearly enough time together, and all he can do for these moments is sulk and feel like sleeping.

“You’re more than good enough,” Taiga says. “Like this or whatever, Tatsuya, it’s still you.”

He falls asleep halfway through the movie and only wakes up when it’s done. Taiga’s talking, voice low in Tatsuya’s ears, but it’s the glare of his computer screen that won’t let Tatsuya go back to sleep. The computer’s making noises; it takes a few seconds for him to figure out that Taiga’s skyping with Alex—they’d all planned to do it, but of course he’d fallen asleep and screwed things up.

“Hey,” he says, sitting up and trying to shake off the stiffness in his neck.

“I didn’t mean to wake you up,” says Taiga.

“You didn’t,” says Tatsuya.

He still feels not-so-great physically, but the mental exhaustion, the worry and anger and stress, isn’t looming quite so large. It’s pulling him down, but with a weight he can manage, and he can push it aside for now and squint at the screen.

“Turn the brightness down?”

“Sure. Sorry,” says Taiga.

Tatsuya keeps his eyes half-closed, open enough to see Alex’s face on the screen, head leaning against Taiga’s shoulder.

“Are you getting enough sleep?” Alex says.

“Yeah,” says Tatsuya. “It’s a long season is all.”

(Taiga’s not this tired, and he’s come from another time zone—and yeah, it’s earlier in Chicago right now but still.) Alex smiles on the other side, leaning closer to her webcam.

“You sure?”

“I’m sure,” says Tatsuya (and he’s being honest right now; he’s getting in the right amount of hours but he’s still tired and sore and run-down, and maybe things would be different if the team was good and they were in the playoff picture and there was something to play for).

He closes his eyes all the way and listens as Taiga and Alex pick up the threads from their conversation before he’d woken up, about shitty weather and fast food and fashion, half-listening and offering a word here and there. Taiga’s hand is rubbing his back in a soothing rhythm that makes it hard to stay awake if he doesn’t try, and soon enough, after they’ve said their goodbyes to Alex and Taiga’s closed his laptop, he stops trying.

* * *

April 8, Brooklyn

He has them save a ticket for Tatsuya three rows back, and he shows up half-incognito in a beanie and a pair of obnoxious Bulls sunglasses he’d probably stolen from Alex (and the lights inside are bright enough that he can definitely see with them). It’s probably enough to fool most people into thinking he’s just another hipster bro rooting for the away team; he catches Taiga looking and raises his beer in a toast and Taiga almost laughs.

Tatsuya gives him a reason to up his game even more, though; the game’s not only a battle for the five seed (not that it’s not good enough on its own). He thinks harder about open passing lanes; he dunks from further back; he blocks harder; he tries to steal the ball the way Tatsuya would (which doesn’t always work). But they’re building a good lead; Coach rests him most of the second and third but he makes his few minutes count, and they throw him back out for the fourth for the triple-double chase.

He makes it easily, three more rebounds and four more blocks and he’s there. They’ve got this game as close to in the bag as they can with four minutes left, and Taiga comes back again for the last thirty seconds, lobbing a rare three-pointer from the left side. It’s not as pretty as Tatsuya would have made it, but three points are three points and that puts the game on ice.

“Showoff,” his text from Tatsuya reads.

They don’t see each other before the team gets hustled back to the bus, all their gear already onboard, but Taiga holds his phone in his hand.

“All for you,” he texts back.

* * *

April 15, Los Angeles

Tatsuya gets the first flight out after his equipment cleanup; his flight arrives in the middle of the day and half an hour earlier than it’s supposed to. Alex is already there at the airport, though, and she’s already had time to process her mess of feelings and separate out her selfish gladness of getting Tatsuya back home early from her sympathy and disappointment that he couldn’t quite carry the Knicks to a playoff spot.

It’s probably better that he hadn’t, better for him, anyway—and better for her own sanity and stress levels. She’s watched the coaching staff overuse him game after game, all season long; she knows they know he’d never hold himself out because of his stupid pride and even when he’s tired and hurting he’ll go in and let the other team beat him up when there’s no one there to physically protect him. Just because he can take it doesn’t mean he should, and just because he can average an absurd amount of minutes without breaking doesn’t mean he should either. They’re headed towards screwing him up in the long run for a trivial amount of wins right now, and it makes her want to get the first flight out to New York and give the coaches a piece of her mind.

But Tatsuya’s got a long summer ahead of him to rest, first a few weeks (maybe a month and a half if things go well) where they can root for Taiga together and the rest of the time to compress eight or nine months of being apart into. He’s already getting started on it when he practically falls into her arms, sagging his weight against her more than he’ll admit. He’d left all his stuff in New York, only taking a small carryon full of essentials, so they don’t have to wait for luggage or anything like that. He holds her hand all the way to the car, halfway spacing out and staying quiet, and she’s content with that.

He sleeps with his cheek pressed to the car window the way he’d been able to do since he was a kid; it’s still fucking adorable (and he’d kill her if she’d told him that, but it is). She shakes him half-awake when they get home, and goes straight to the bed without bothering to undress. Alex snaps a picture on her phone, types “home safe and sound”, and sends it to Taiga. Her phone vibrates all of two seconds later.

“Miss you two,” the response reads.

She can’t wait until they’re all together again.

* * *

May 1, Los Angeles

It sucks to get knocked out. It sucks worse to get knocked out by Toronto, a team Taiga knows they should beat, a team they do beat in the first two games before they get blown out in Game Three and Toronto steals all the momentum to win the next three, too. It’s nothing they can answer for, really; they’d played worse than they should have.

At least he gets to go home, live with the disappointment while both LA teams are still in the picture and grapple with his mistakes, but with Alex and Tatsuya beside him. It’s the one thing he has to look forward to, other than the prospect of next season, except he can’t think about anything fresh and new when he’s still in the mire of his old mistakes.

Tatsuya and Alex don’t offer him empty platitudes or tell him they’re sorry; they give him enough space while still very much being there, the kind of thing he always wants to do for them when they’re feeling like this but never knows if he’s doing it right. He and Alex sit in the backseat of the car together on the way back and she lets him rest his head on her lap and strokes his hair.

And then they’re home; they’re all home together and they have all summer ahead of them, months of rest and basketball and being with each other, and already the anger and disappointment are starting to melt away.

“Let’s grill steaks tonight,” he says, bumping his hip into Tatsuya’s.

“Sure,” says Tatsuya, squeezing Alex’s hand.

They’re both looking up into Taiga’s face, content. The feeling’s pretty contagious.

**Author's Note:**

> yeahhhh everything i write for the next 3000 years will be knbxnba 
> 
> also even in fiction the knicks being functional is a liiiitle too unbelievable for a non-fantasy work. 
> 
> i tried to divide up pov but taiga ended up with all the pov of all 3 of them lmao 
> 
> also what are titles


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